Why support it if you cannot stomach it?

I am not "against" any of the above, I merely believe that you should be accountable for the actions you do enable. If its police brutality, or collateral damages or the consequences that come from not enabling them.

 

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And my question is are you ever accountable for inaction or being against an action? Can one ever say that one's inaction is accountable for consequences?
I raised the issue of the police because whatever you or don't do - in most countries - your actions AND inaction contribute to various bad consequences.

And then there is my question about how far you take this....Being a consumer in most countries enables one form of abuse or another. Are we, you accountable since your, our consuming enables abuse by making it profitable?

 

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Only if you ignore the abuse. Again, just my opinion. Do you believe people must needs be abused for society to function normally?

 

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No. But I do not think one can be a member of any even slightly industrialized society, nowadays, without enabling abuse either through act or inaction. Taxes, purchases, tacit support of military and police are a few examples. Also oppressed people may find it very hard to move out of oppression without in some way enabling unjustified violence. Once there is armed struggle all bets are off. On the other hand for an oppressed person not to support violent resistance to oppression can also be argued to enable the oppression. One can say 'this was good' but 'that was bad' but we do not enable simply through our verbalized judgments.

I see no squeeky clean participation in the world today. And I think that is some of what I was reacting to in your posts though I share, I think many, but not all of your specific positions. You came off as if there was the squeeky clean option. I don't see one.

You can live in a cave perhaps, but walk into a town and start renting, shopping and participating
and you are enabling abuse somewhere, probably in quite a few ways. both through action and inaction/silence and when you oppose action.

 

Perhaps but buying a cup of coffee and switching off the news when it talks about the exploitation of coffee workers are not the same kind of enabling.

 

They are different types of enabling. And then there is the option not taken, or explicitly stated in the two options above of protesting that other people are drinking coffee. Not paying taxes is a step some USA citizens take. And this is a big one, it can lead to all sorts of problems for that person. They could see most americans as supporting the war machine. And the same is true for tax payers in most nations, since their taxes will likely go to severe abuse of one kind or another.

 

Again paying taxes is different from watching American Idol when your government is actively torturing people. Thats apathy.

 

It is different and it is apathetic if it sums up your behavior. In the first however you are literally enabling the government to do things. In the second you are being passive - or overwhelmed, or feel hopeless or......And one can watch American Idol AND watch documentaries on Iraq and be upset and pay your taxes. I am not sure how much good this does anyone, but I suppose I can connect to that person better.

Further pretty much every government is actively torturing people. Either through federal, state or local authorities. So this would mean that all frivolous activity should stop, everywhere.

How much should one be willing to look at images? If one protested once agains the war in Iraq do you then get to watch?

 

As much as possible.

No. One cannot rightfully think that one is innocent. And I think this desire to be innocent is a strong drive behind much of human action.

For example, nowadays, it is almost impossible to survive in the civilized world without causing pollution. Motor vehicles, chemical industry, plastic, ... - none of these things were invented by me, but I use them and depend on them for my bodily survival. Some argue that since I did not invent them and that since I would most likely die if I wouldn't use them, this absolves me of the responsibility for pollution, and renders me innocent.

But this is not true: Part of the garbage in landfills, part of the ozon hole, part of the dead rivers and wasted lands ... - all this is my doing. I am not innocent.

However, those who proclaim to be "shocked" when confronted with the consequences of what they support or the way they act, and who wish that such confrontations would not take place and are inappropriate, are really just trying to blind themselves from the consequences of their support and actions.

I am under the impression that the motto of these people is "The human desire to be innocent must be respected, and everything must be done to serve this desire, including denial, lying and deception."

I think such dilemmas are impossible to resolve as long as it is insisted that one must take that course of action or that there should be a course of action that leaves one innocent.

Karmically, we are accountable for such things, yes.

However, as many people in this world do not believe in karma, they can justify deeming themselves innocent while engaging in all kinds of moral relativism and carelessness.

In the conception of a godless universe with no karma, eventually, anything goes, and notions of free will and responsibility become moot.

 

Actually that would be your burden to prove. Given Saddam penchant for torture, mustard gasssing and outright murder, there is no guarantee that anyone would be left alive in Iraq right now. In fact it is likely the secular leader might have found himself on the wrong end of the very same people that are bombing crowded marketplaces today.

 

I wonder how many posters here are not vegetarian?

How many meat-lovers who think meat comes from supermarkets are there around here?
How many who know it doesn't come from stores, but from animals who are slaughtered?
Why people who have jobs "rendering" carcasses in meatworks are generally not happy people?

What this has to do with the topic S.A.M is into?

Or who has ever worked on a farm? If so, you should have seen things that are generally considered stomach-turning by the average joe.

Anyone ever been on lambing rounds? Or had to bury dead lambs or ewes? Anyone seen fly-strike? Mastitis in a cow's udder?

There's some frightfully awful stuff on the average farm. If you work on one- you deal with it - it becomes routine. Not enjoyable as such, just routine.

 

Considering that the major public health problem in Iraqs children was overweight before the US got their grubby little hands on it, that's easily disproved. A million people died in Iraq, more if we count the two Gulf wars and the sanctions, only because of American actions. This is what Americans stand for, when they support the war in Iraq.

 

"Shortly after the sanctions were imposed, the Iraqi government developed a system of free food rations comprising of 1000 calories per person/day or 40% of the daily requirements, which an estimated 60% of the population relied on for a vital part of their sustenance. With the introduction of the Oil-for-Food Programme in 1997, this situation gradually improved. In May 2000 a United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) survey noted that almost half the children under 5 years suffered from diarrhoea, in a country where the population is marked by its youth, with 45% being under 14 years of age in 2000. Power shortages, lack of spare parts and insufficient technical know-how lead to the breakdown of many modern facilities.[12]

The overall literacy rate in Iraq had been 78% in 1977 and 87% for adult women by 1985, but declined rapidly since then. Between 1990 and 1998, over one fifth of Iraqi children stopped enrolling in school, consequently increasing the number of non-literates and losing all the gains made in the previous decade. The 1990s also saw a dramatic increase in child labor, from a virtually non-existent level in the 1980s. The per capita income in Iraq dropped from $3510 in 1989 to $450 in 1996, heavily influenced by the rapid devaluation of the Iraqi dinar.[12]

Iraq had been one of the few countries in the Middle East that invested in women’s education. But this situation changed from the late eighties on with increasing militarisation and a declining economic situation. Consequencently the economic hardships and war casualties in the last decades have increased the number of women-headed households and working women.[12]

Some researchers say that over a million Iraqis, disproportionately children, died as a result of the sanctions, [13] although other estimates have ranged as low as 170,000 children. [9] [14] [15] UNICEF announced that 500,000 child deaths have occurred as a result of the sanctions.[16] The sanctions resulted in high rates of malnutrition, lack of medical supplies, and diseases from lack of clean water. Chlorine, was desperately needed to disinfect water supplies, but it was banned from the country due to the potential that it may be used as part of a chemical weapon. On May 10, 1996, Madeleine Albright (U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations at the time) appeared on 60 Minutes and was confronted with statistics of half a million children under five having died as a result of the sanctions. She replied "we think the price is worth it", though in her 2003 autobiography she wrote of her response (answering a loaded question):[17][18]

I should have answered the question by reframing it and pointing out the inherent flaws in the premise behind it. … I had fallen into a trap and said something that I simply did not mean. That is no one’s fault but my own.[19]

Denis Halliday was appointed United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Baghdad, Iraq as of 1 September 1997, at the Assistant Secretary-General level. In October 1998 he resigned after a 34 year career with the UN in order to have the freedom to criticise the sanctions regime, saying "I don't want to administer a programme that satisfies the definition of genocide"





during this time how much money did saddam and his government spend on their own personal indulgences?

 

Who cares? It was not because of Saddam that the UN representatives called it genocide and resigned. They could not stomach it, so they did not support it.

 

yawn

 

Yeah, that pretty much was the overall reaction to the sanctions in the US. And after 10 years of this, they invaded the country.

For shame.

Here is one veteran who could not stomach it.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/nov2004/vet-n11.shtml

 

Islam demands you support death sentences, and demands you must believe it.

"If anyone kills a person - unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land - it would be as if he killed all people. And if anyone saves a life, it would be as if he saved the life of all people" (Qur'an 5:32).

 

Selective reading there. Whats the whole verse?

5:32.] Because of that We ordained for the Children of Israel that if anyone killed a person not in retaliation of murder, or (and) to spread mischief in the land - it would be as if he killed all mankind, and if anyone saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of all mankind. And indeed, there came to them Our Messengers with clear proofs, evidences, and signs, even then after that many of them continued to exceed the limits (e.g. by doing oppression unjustly and exceeding beyond the limits set by Allâh by committing the major sins) in the land!.[]

Here is the refresher:

6:151] Say, "Come let me tell you what your Lord has really prohibited for you: You shall not set up idols besides Him. You shall honor your parents. You shall not kill your children from fear of poverty - we provide for you and for them. You shall not commit gross sins, obvious or hidden. You shall not kill - GOD has made life sacred - except in the course of justice. These are His commandments to you, that you may understand."

 

Much like your selective, sanctimonious, hypocritical garbage you spew daily.

Your religion demands the death penalty for uttering blasphemy, Sam, and you MUST abide and believe it. It's even written into the Pakistan Penal Code. You as an Indian and a Muslim should appreciate the demands of your state and your religion.

But, then there's the problem of your selective, sanctimonious...